![]() ![]() Of the 50 colonists who celebrated the harvest (and their survival), 22 were men, four were married women and 25 were children and teenagers. ![]() Most of the attendees at the first Thanksgiving were men 78 percent of the women who traveled on the Mayflower perished over the preceding winter. It took place over three days between late September and mid-November and included feasting as well as games and military exercises. In the Fall of 1621, the Pilgrims famously shared a harvest feast with the Pokanokets the meal is now considered the basis for the Thanksgiving holiday. The settlers decided the name was appropriate, as the Mayflower had set sail from the port of Plymouth in England. The explorer John Smith had named the area Plymouth after leaving Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World. The Pilgrims sent an exploratory party ashore, and on December 18 docked at Plymouth Rock, on the western side of Cape Cod Bay. After 66 days, it reached the shores of Cape Cod, anchoring at the site of Provincetown on November 21. The Pilgrims had originally signed a contract with the Virginia Company to settle near the Hudson River, but rough seas and storms prevented the ship from reaching its initial destination. Passengers on these first four ships were called the "Old Comers" of Plymouth Colony, and were given special treatment in later colonial affairs. ![]() Wanting to secure their English language and heritage, and seeking more economic opportunity, the group–later known as the Pilgrims–laid plans for a voyage to the New World aboard the Mayflower.ĭid you know? Three more ships traveled to Plymouth soon after the Mayflower, including the Fortune (1621), the Anne and the Little James (both 1623). The Separatists had sought religious freedom before, fleeing England in 16 to settle in the Netherlands, first in Amsterdam and later in the town of Leiden, where they remained for the next decade. Feeling that the Church of England had not sufficiently completed the necessary work of the Protestant Reformation, the group had chosen to break with the church altogether. Among the group traveling on the Mayflower in 1620 were close to 40 members of a radical Puritan faction known as the English Separatist Church. ![]()
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